Bolt, Fraser-Pryce to lead Jamaican team for worlds

KINGSTON | By Kayon Raynor

Usain Bolt of Jamaica approaches the finish line after running the final leg for the Racers Track Club to win in the men's 4x100m relay at the London Diamond League 'Anniversary Games' athletics meeting at the Olympic Stadium, in east London July 27, 2013.

Reuters/Andrew Winning

KINGSTON (Reuters) - Olympic champions Usain Bolt and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce headline a Jamaican world athletics championships squad that will come under intense scrutiny in Moscow following several positive doping tests by some of the country's athletes.

Five athletes, including Olympic gold medallists Asafa Powell and Sherone Simpson, tested positive for banned substances at the Caribbean island's national championships in June and face disciplinary hearings.

All five have denied knowingly taking banned substances.

Neither Powell nor Simpson, both of whom tested positive for the stimulant oxilophrine, were included in the squad named by the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) on Monday for the August 10-18 championships in the Russian capital.

Nine-times world championship medallist Veronica Campbell-Brown, who held a wild card entry to Moscow by virtue of winning the 200 meters in Daegu, South Korea in 2011, also missed out.

Campbell-Brown is provisionally suspended after failing a test for using a banned diuretic at the Jamaica International Invitational World Challenge meet in May.

Powell had finished seventh in the 100m at the national championships but had been expected to be included in the 4x100 relay team having run 9.88 seconds at the Lausanne Diamond League meeting on July 4.

Jamaican officials did not indicate what event the athletes were likely to run in Moscow but Nesta Carter is expected to join Bolt, Nickel Ashmeade and Kemar Bailey-Cole in the 100m in the absence of injured world champion Yohan Blake.